Antibiotics soon will bear a big new warning that overusing them makes them less effective.  From the February 6, 2003 release of the Associated Press Health News, comes the news that antibiotics will soon carry a new warning message mandated by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The new action was prompted because it has long been known that antibiotics have been drastically overused.  According to the AP story, the new warning says that doctors must be sure a patient is suffering a bacterial infection, not a virus with similar symptoms, before prescribing antibiotics.  The article notes that all too often, doctors prescribe antibiotics for children with earaches caused by viruses, or for adults with colds or viral coughs.

Antibiotics have no effect on viruses; they only fight bacteria. However, the US government estimates that half of the 100 million antibiotic prescriptions written in physician offices each year are unnecessary. 

One of the reasons that the FDA action has become so important is that bacteria are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Many common infections no longer are treatable with old standbys like penicillin, and some have become untreatable by every antibiotic on the market. Anytime antibiotics are used, survivor germs can emerge stronger and spread. It is the overuse of antibiotics that has lead to the increased resistance by bacteria.

The FDA proposed the new warnings two years ago. They will go into effect Feb. 6, 2004. Unfortunately, the warnings would be only on the drugs` official label, and the AP story reports that very few doctors read drug labels. Because of this the FDA is working on additional ways to spread their concern over the use of antibiotics, including future ads aimed at consumers.

From the November 18, 2002 issue of New York Magazine comes a feature article about many famous New Yorkers receiving chiropractic care.  The article starts off by dropping the names of famous people who depend on chiropractic care.  Those names include the likes of Henry and Nancy Kissinger, Ralph and Ricky Lauren, and Oscar de la Renta. 

De la Renta recounts his story for the article, "I had back surgery a year and a half ago, but after the surgery, I was in a car accident and had whiplash and horrible pain in my elbows and arms.  The doctor said I would need another surgery on my cervical vertebrae, and I have to tell you, I went to my chiropractor every day for six weeks and not only did I not have to have the surgery, I have never again had any pain."

In the article, Woodson Merrell, executive director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing states, "A lot of patients are really ticked off with medicine right now.  They want nothing to do with conventional therapy."  The Continuum Center for Health and Healing is a lower Fifth Avenue outpost of Beth Israel Medical Center, offering chiropractic, acupuncture, and aromatherapy along with their standard services of pediatrics, gynecology, and internal medicine.

Playwright Warren Leight, whose play Side Man won the Tony in 1999, is another advocate of chiropractic care.  He related his story in the article when he stated, "I was sent to the chiropractor by a friend who had migraines. I was skeptical, but I'm a writer. I'm skeptical of everything. I thought I'd give it a try because the painkillers were a drag. It had not occurred to me that you could go to someone who would run her hand down your spine and know where it's hurting. She always knows where it hurts. I go to my chiropractor like an 80-year-old and come out like a 45-year-old. I also haven't gotten as sick as often since seeing her," Leight adds, saying of his visits with her, "It seems to re-center your body's immune system."

In the January 14, 2003 issue of the Washington Post is a news story that reported the results of a study done at the University of Maryland in Baltimore on the drastic increase in psychiatric drug use in children.  The study, which evaluated 900,000 children on Medicaid in a Midwest state, showed that more than 6 percent of children were taking drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin and Risperdal.

This means that the number of American children being treated with psychiatric drugs has grown sharply in the past 15 years, tripling from 1987 to 1996 with no sign of slowing.  The authors of the study said they fear that cost-saving techniques by insurance companies, marketing by the pharmaceutical industry and increased demands on parents and doctors may be driving the increase.

In response to the study, Michael Jellinek, chief of child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, said, "There are fewer options other than medication."  He noted that insurers have increased their profits by decreasing the use of psychotherapy, which is more expensive than drugs in the short term. He continued, "The insurance system gave an incentive for medications and a disincentive for therapy."

Julie Zito, lead author and researcher at the University of Maryland, points out, "Other than zonking you, we don't know that behavioral management by drug control is the way to learn to behave properly. If we are using drugs to control behavior, that doesn't change the underlying problem if someone doesn't know how to get along with their peers."

"The medicine may help the symptoms but not address issues of self-esteem, interpersonal relationships and family relationships, all of which are part of recovery," said Jellinek, who analyzed Zito`s study. He continued, "You can get a lot of benefit from behavioral treatments. If someone is getting medicines for obsessive-compulsive disorder, I would like to see them be given a trial of behavioral therapy to see if that helps them and maybe decrease the medication."